The FA Cup third round is where dreams are dramatically realised or painfully shattered, where minnows battle the mighty and Davids take on Goliaths, with neutrals across the land hoping for giant killings aplenty. In the cup, the form book and relative league positions of the competing sides often go out of the window, but we’ve picked out some great accumulators to give your betting coffers a boost.
Easy Winner – 9/10 (Sky Bet)
- Derby to beat Southport (1/9) – Derby are flying high in the Championship and their slick passing game should be far too much for the side who are struggling towards the nether regions of the Conference Premier.
- Aston Villa to beat Blackpool (1/3) – Another side who are having a very poor season is Blackpool who are rock bottom of the Championship. Though Villa are hardly flying this season, Paul Lambert’s men will undoubtedly get the better of the Tangerines.
- Stoke to beat Wrexham (1/2) – Another Conference Premier side has to journey to a top flight club as Wrexham take on Stoke at the Britannia. Mark Hughes is not the sort of boss to take the FA Cup lightly and we fully expect a comfortable home win here.
- Manchester City to beat Sheffield Wednesday (1/7) – As it’s the cup we’ve thrown in an extra selection for our easy winner acca in the form of Premier League champions Man City to beat Sheffield Wednesday, who are currently hovering around the middle of the Championship. It was 7-0 to City when the pair met earlier this season in the League Cup so we’re happy to back another home win here!
Medium Risk – 19/1 (Bet365)
- Leicester to beat Newcastle (13/8) – At the time of writing it looks as though Alan Pardew might well have left Newcastle to take up the job at Crystal Palace, and – as everyone knows – a rudderless ship is liable to get wrecked in the FA Cup third round. The Foxes have the guile and determination to take advantage of the uncertainty amongst the Magpies’ ranks.
- Millwall to beat Bradford (10/11) – The Den is never an easy (or nice) place to visit and though Millwall are having a tough season in the Championship and Bradford are doing well in the division below, we feel that Ian Holloway will guide his side to a comfortable victory here.
- Burnley to beat Tottenham (3/1) – Spurs are as unpredictable as ever this season and we think that odds of 3/1 for Burnley to get the win here against what will almost certainly be a much-changed Tottenham side have to be grabbed.
Long Shot – 417/1 (Bet365)
- Blyth Spartans to beat Birmingham (8/1) – And so we get to our giant killing acca, which we kick off with Northern Premier side Blyth Spartans to beat Championship mid-table team Birmingham. Our logic? It’s the FA Cup! And Blyth played very well to win away at Hartlepool in the last round.
- AFC Wimbledon to beat Liverpool (14/1) – Okay, don’t put your house on this acca as it is purely for the romantics amongst you, but in this replay of the 1988 FA Cup final (which Wimbledon, the team from which this club rose, won) we are hopeful of a victory for the minnows against a Liverpool side who are unlikely to play their strongest XI.
- Preston to beat Norwich (21/10) – Perhaps a little more realistic than the previous two, League One side Preston have lost just one of their last 10 in all competitions (prior to the weekend match against Yeovil) and the first club to achieve the league and FA Cup double (albeit way back in 1889) can do a job on the Canaries in this one to complete what would be a barnstormer of an acca.